Undo
Zongze Chen
Advisor: Luisa Pereira
A physical interface that explores novel interactions with websites.
Project Description
Undo is a new physical interface that controls the browser by connecting to a paired Chrome extension. Unlike utility tools, Undo adds destructive functions that can undo website structures. For example, it can erase website contents, move elements around, and create virtual browsing parties in the browser. Undo serves as an experiment to rebel against standard product design and play around returning autonomy to the consumers of today’s digital products.
Technical Details
Networking: The physical interface is based on Arduino Nano 33 Iot and connects to a node server through MQTT. A Chrome extension will connect to the server through WebSocket and manipulate DOM elements. The video sharing feature is made with TaskVision and PeerJS.
Fabrication: The physical interface is modeled in 3D CAD software and 3D printed with PLA, combined with wet sanding technique, colored with spray paint and finished with clear matt varnish.
Research/Context
Technology, being the main driver of the economy today, has unavoidably been shaped to serve that very purpose. Every button and every placement of elements on most websites are designed following a developed pattern to “force” users to do certain interactions. This direction that we are pushing towards feels very one-dimensional. Users of digital products are becoming more and more just consumers of those products, and what’s gone with that is the autonomy of users.
I find that today’s era has some similarities to the beginning of the 20th century when the second industrialization and mass production occurred. Both eras are experiencing fundamental changes in society influenced by technology. Both are economic-driven. Both are establishing new norms on huge populations. I keep looking back at the artworks of Cubism and Dadaism, which emerged in the early 20th century. They took things apart, disturbed the established system, and questioned the norms that were given to everybody’s life. Perhaps I just want something like that, something different from the mainstream product, to deviate from this agenda of progression for a little bit, to close my eyes and just imagine living in a parallel path of the future where a strange and unlikely kind of technology exists, to undo a little bit of the existing design paradigm, and return a little bit of the users’ autonomy.